Aw: Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: External Link Symbol

[Asmus Freytag]

On 4/12/2024 5:26 AM, Mark E. Shoulson via Unicode wrote:
> On 4/12/24 03:31, Marius Spix via Unicode wrote:
>> For all these types of links existing characters can be used:
>> anchor links: U+00B6 ¶ PILCROW SIGN
>> local links: U+1F517 🔗 LINK SYMBOL
>> broken links (also known as red-links): U+26D3 U+200D U+1F4A5 CHAINS 
>> + ‍ZERO WIDTH JOINER + COLLISION SYMBOL
>> external links: U+2192 → RIGHTWARDS ARROW
>
> Good suggestions.  There's "can be used", though, and there's "are 
> being used."  I've certainly seen the PILCROW SIGN used for anchor 
> links, though generally only at the "anchor" end, not at the link 
> end.  Many web pages have the pilcrow sign appearing on hover-over on 
> headers which act as anchors.  And not everyplace uses the Wikipedia 
> arrow-and-box symbol for external links, I think I've seen things like 
> RIGHTWARDS ARROW or other arrows used.  But lots of places use the 
> Wikipedia-style arrow-and-box.  Saying, "well, you could use something 
> else" is sort of like saying "we don't need to encode Devanagari, you 
> can just transliterate into Latin, it says the same thing."
>
> ~mark
>
"Can be used" is not the standard we should apply. There may be 
legitimate alternate representations for the same concept, but that 
doesn't get us out of recognizing the case like this where there's a 
clear favorite in wide-spread use as symbol.

I get it when Unicode is hesitant about encoding just "any" symbol, such 
as traffic signs, because signage and text are distinct use cases. But 
in this case, the rationale for not encoding this is very thin - 
particularly because a lot of parallel cases are clearly available as 
characters..

A./
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